Ten years ago it had seemed we were going somewhere when the shops began to open, shops that you’d only previously been able to see in other towns, in London, Manchester, Leeds. But once we got our Princes Quay Shopping Centre and a Starbucks, it became obvious that shops do not make a mark on the map. If you woke up on a street outside Maccy-D’s and Topshop, it could be Rotterdam or anywhere, Liverpool or ’ull.
So where have I been all these years? wondered Sarah.
She couldn’t remember much about where she’d been either. There was the olden days, represented by Jason Vickers, who she saw even now, hanging about there with the kids, one eye on her house yet again. She saw him glance over, and turned away to occupy herself.
In the olden days she’d been a precocious sixteen year old with Jason and the other kids, playing Block or Kerbie down on Ena Street. Once they’d played spin the bottle, and Jason Vickers, being only ten at the time, had kissed Sarah in the level-three-with-tongues round.
That was about all she could remember before now.
She could tell that Jason had never forgotten that. He was a peripheral figure now, a worn version of the child’s face she’d forgotten, waiting outside on a Thursday for Dean to come home, maybe to sell him an eighth. But Jason looked at her boldly now, with the eyes of a man rather than blushing boy. And she’d noticed him as well, looking lean, keen, far different from the glazed dope-eyes and pot-bellied stillness that Dean had taken on. It irritated her that Dean noticed nothing, just sold on to this rival whatever he hadn’t already smoked. But there were always eyes waiting to notice around here. Always someone who knew, or who knew someone else who knew. A dirty big goldfish bowl.
Dean’s mam Edna wandered from one house to the next on a knock-and-enter basis, arms folded, sucking on a fag and scrounging the next one, up early to sign on at the top of the week, then nothing better to do than tell the neighbours what she thought of the other neighbours, drink tinnies with the neighbours, fuck the neighbours, whatever it was that microcosmic week. Edna ventured as far as The Boulevard, even visiting Jason’s mother, then back. Everyone knew everything. But the Woodcock Street everything had nothing to do with that Deep.
Sarah rummaged through the spilling VHS cassette cases, noticing with a sigh the increasing amount of anonymous videos cropping up around the house, MIKES TAPE. FIST 3. He couldn’t even be bothered to hide them anymore.
She tidied them away dutifully, sighing again as she thought of the usual. Her sitting awake upstairs in bed waiting for him, whilst he watched porn, smoked dope and tossed himself off. It wasn’t worth challenging him. Dean’s default reaction seemed to be frustration and anger. She would smile though these days and think of those aquaria, wondering if they switched the lights off at night, and how exciting it was to have tropical eels and sharks in Hull, there in the dark on the banks of the Humber.
Dean had a forklift licence but no incentive to shift himself. Since they’d moved in together, she had harassed and harried him to work; written his CVs and pushed him out of bed in a morning, nagged him to pay bills. But since the announcement of The Deep, things had changed. She’d left him to it, beginning to resent having to guide him in life. She’d grown weary, and more than a little scared of his furious reaction to the slightest question or challenge. And it was as if he sensed it, this threat from the bottom of the sea, curling his lip at the mention of that Deep, using her information pack for a roach, using her application form to line the cat’s litter tray, as if he daren’t vocalize the truth about his objection himself. Dean had never seemed more scared and helpless.
Last Thursday, it had officially come out about Dean’s job, when she’d caught him.
***
Britannia House was a dinosaur building, a soulless monument to the square and concrete city centre. When the Queen had come to visit, seeing fit to visit some old biddy on Bransholme, she’d be passing this road on her royal route, so they tore up the bushes that used to be outside here and replaced them with a monumental pillar, a big industrial funnel thing painted blue like something from the set of a children’s TV programme. This pillar of presentation was accompanied by some globular fountains that sprayed bleached water all over the pavement and the road. They straddled Britannia corner like three lactating tits. But Britannia House still lurked like an ugly concrete skag token booth.
‘What the fuck are they anyow?’ Dean was saying to Jason Vickers, looking at the slimy tit-fountains.
Sarah had caught them on the way out. They’d been averting their eyes from the women behind the plexiglass so they could make a straight-faced claim, up to where the message…ALL CRISIS LOANS AND SOCIAL FUNDING ENQUIRIES TO DESK 7…buzzed along like a lifeline on a heart monitor. They also averted their eyes away from the doormen so they could light up. Their eyes were so averse after Britannia that they couldn’t walk straight, much less notice Sarah. And so Dean, who was supposed to be at work, was caught red-handed with a wad of Incapacity Benefit claim forms. Vickers, feeling strangely guilty as well, was there claiming a crisis loan, he said, to go to his Grandma’s funeral in Newcastle.
The stupid thing was that after the initial discovery, she was calm about it, as ever, trying in vain to diffuse Dean’s paranoia and frustration. It’s okay Dean, I worked out that you’d lost your job. It’s okay, we can sort it. She could sigh, swallow her vitriol and do this for him. But Dean was volatile, Dean denied that he’d been lying about his job, resented the implication, and so spun a thousand new lies. ‘Oh, I’ve just come to get some advice on sick leave, oh, I’ve been sacked but it was only last week and I’m sorting it out with them now.’ Lies and more lies, and what was more, the blame turned back on her. You silly fucking bitch, stop fuckin’ naggin’, I’ll sort it, don’t you dare call me a liar, shouting, shouting louder and closer into her face.
So, apart from being too scared and embarrassed to be shouted at in the street like that, she’d been willing to play armistice for the good of the relationship and he’d stormed off with Vickers to the pub, all victimized by his nagging girlfriend.
All the while, Vickers had a right eyeful of her, unguardedly, from top to toe. But Jason looked into her eyes as well, as if he wanted to, as if he even knew what colour they were, as if the green reminded him of that spun bottle. But she’d gone home, playing happy, but found herself there again, pretending, daydreaming about the oceans, until the feeling came to start worrying about tea.
So she dared to call Dean later on his mobile, to ask about when he was coming home. She just had time to hear the crack of a pool cue and the clink of a pint glass, then him. When drunk, Dean was a thousand times worse, and he kicked off at the very sound of her voice, how dare she f-ing check up on him, shouting, smashing down his phone. Sarah worried, and thought again about maybe going to stay with her mother instead of waiting for him to slam through that door. But she couldn’t; she’d done that before, and that made him worse, charging around to her mother’s and banging on the windows, come out y’ silly fuckin’ cow, come out or I’ll kick the fuckin’ door in. So she waited with her bowels churning, all so she could pad around him, flinching until they went to bed, and then he’d roll over and do a shag in her, his way of apology, his way of affection, his way of saying no fucking more.
But no. Last Thursday he’d been with Vickers, and Vickers had been fired up with the thought of these moshers who’d been looking at him in the Burger King the night before. Shitty moshers, with their black hoodies and massive black jeans, chains, skateboards and Nu-metal. Vickers had been pissing on Prospect Street near the Burger King as they went past, these moshers, and they stepped away from his salty, steaming urine as it gushed over the pavement. Just a look of distaste, that’s all it had been.
As Vickers scurried after Dean on their way from the Eagle Tavern, down the bottleneck alley between Coltman and Saner Street, they’d happened to see, and point out with incredulity, these same moshers in their black hoodies. Beany, who had been sealed up with fu
ming irritation since hanging up on Sarah and leaving the pub, walked straight into the biggest one. He told them he’d been rowing with his lass. They tried to sidestep, shaken by this full-grown man starting on them. He and Vickers stopped them passing, using their British Bulldog sidestepping skills from the golden olden days of Ena Street. Dean thought of Sarah pushing him in to work, wanting to know what he was doing, where he was going, where his money had gone, don’t eat this, don’t take that… He told the moshers what he was about. Sorry, mate. Can’t hit a lass. And then he took it out on them.
***
She’d taken herself as stunned, maybe depressed later that night. She was just settling, relaxing a little, knowing he was in a cell for the night, when there was a knock at the door and she found Vickers there, slightly out of breath. Sarah had already received the call from Edna. ‘Our Dean’s been locked up for fightin’ again,’ she droned. ‘They’re keepin’ ’im in ovvanight. ’E’s in court tomorrer morning.’ Then the old cow had added: ‘’E was frightend to ring you cos you’ve been upset with him. So I’m ringin’ yer.’ Sarah laughed. He was frightened?
She was a little wary of Jason at first.
The kettle and the light switched on, the curtains drawn, and he filled her in on the details. The moshers had put up a wretched fight and run on to a barbeque they were heading to. Beany had marched in, having lost it completely. He ended up trying to push the smaller mosher’s face into the barbeque. Jason described it with a feral kind of relish that made Sarah feel weak – she could imagine the shock to this innocent little soiree as these two stormed in through the rickety gate. The hot crackle and pop as the poor kid vomited, the smell of steaming, sizzling BBQ bile in the charcoal. The stand had collapsed before Dean could push the kid’s face down. ‘Good job,’ Jason said. ‘That woulda been GBH.’
The police had found Dean on his way home. He’d had a go at them as well. Vickers had long since legged it.
‘’E’s always ’ad that temper though, ’as Beany,’ said Jason. ‘I remember the fuckin’ day he pushed the fuckin’ ’istory teacher through the fuckin’ winder.’
‘He’s never changed.’ Sarah spoke so matter-of-factly, and looked away in a moment of shame, not feeling anything much except a sense of anxiety at not feeling much. The room seemed somehow darker with the electric light on. She didn’t want to be alone.
‘So what you doin’ with a caveman like that then? I mean, ’e’s a mate and all that, but…’ Jason sipped his tea and watched her sidestep his question.
‘So how long has social been paying for my house?’
Jason shrugged, feeling guilty again.
Sarah shook her head, feeling that even talking about Dean would suffocate her. She dreaded finding out. She dreaded having to tell her mother and she dreaded the business of hiding it from her mother. Sarah’s mother already spent her days shuddering from wall to wall, rattling like a tub of Beta-blockers.
So she sat quietly whilst Jason talked. He told her that he argued with his mam, who was, he reckoned, tight, and nosey, and stupid, and who had started screwing some silly old bastard from across the road. Sarah had in fact, already heard this from Edna. Jason said that his sister was a silly cow who was going nowhere. Both of them, nowhere.
He’d awoken that morning to find Edna at the front gate, already loaded up with a six-pack of tinnies, moaning through the window to be let in instead of just knocking and waiting. He traipsed downstairs to the smoke-filled kitchen where they sat gabbing, still in his cap and pants, still sporting a semi on. Edna and his old lady were setting the estate to rights, slagging off some woman, the health visitor of this bloke across the road for giving snooty looks from behind the posh fucking hanging baskets. Edna moaned, ‘Don’t cross the Social, Karen. She can stop yer money y’ know.’
Jason was bored already.
‘Mam, make us some breakfast.’
‘Make yer own fucking breakfast.’
‘Lend us a fiver.’
He nagged until she shrieked, F-off Jason.
‘Look, there’s a letter ’ere fo-yer. Open it and shut up.’
So he sat looking at the letter and ate great overflowing mouthfuls of Coco Pops, ignoring the two women. His blotchy-legged sister had stormed in, demanding to know where her J-Lo poster had gone. Jason took offence, denying it was under his mattress, where he’d tucked it away ready for him to wank over the big famous tanned arse whenever he liked.
‘Mebbe it’s blown out the winder.’
She wouldn’t lend him a fiver either.
The letter turned out to be from a solicitor representing his late father. Jason’s dad Brian had been absent, having sailed fortnight-on, fortnight-off on oil rig standby boats all his working life. He was taken ill with cancer, and then it came out that he’d had a bit on the side up in Newcastle, a woman named Gloria who he’d been spending most of his shore leave with. Brian chose to go and live his last with Gloria.
‘What’s in it?’ quizzed Edna. Jason could almost hear her withered neck extending out of its collar.
‘Mind yer own fuckin’ business.’
He didn’t let on, but his dad had left him money, to be awarded on his twenty-first birthday, in a week’s time.
‘So I’ve got meself a bit of a nest-egg,’ he finished.
Sarah woke up a little.
‘When do you leave for Newcastle?’
‘Y’ what?’
‘I thought you had a funeral…you said…’
Vickers laughed. ‘Nah. I never knew me nan. Just couldn’t wait ’til next fuckin’ week…’ He made a mock toke with his fingers, and gave a cheeky look before standing. ‘Newcastle was the furthest place I could think of,’ he shrugged.
Sarah sighed and smiled a dry smile, not really very amused. Jason removed his cap and stretched, making as if to leave. She could see his wiry abdomen.
‘You look better without that shit hat Jase,’ she said, standing up to meet him. He looked in to the bottle green once again, and threw his cap down without protest, feeling suddenly that he was in there. He kissed her softly, and she laughed to feel downstairs activity jabbing her in the leg almost instantly. He told her he’d had a hard on for her for eleven years, ever since round-three-with-tongues on Ena Street. She laughed. It was the most heartfelt and passionate thing she’d heard in years.
***
That had been last Thursday. She’d gone the next day to see Dean in court. It was all so blustery and run-of-the-mill that it didn’t register. Indifferent lawyers milling through corridors talking down to and through people. Tab ends outside. Dean hardly even looked at her, as if the whole thing was her fault. Past offences taken into account. Remand in custody. Two weeks in custody and then full sentencing on March 17th at two o’clock, which the solicitor said would likely be lessened from assault to affray, and consist of fines, community service, slap on the wrist. Sarah came home and sat with her leaning plant, feeling absolutely nothing.
***
Since last Thursday Jason Vickers had found his life. He was there all the time like some sentinel, pretending to be one of the fourteen year-old shits under an ineffective curfew that had trashed the street. He’d redeemed his inheritance money, and been round in nice new clothes that made Sarah laugh. She didn’t want to let him in, good though it had been. Yes, Jason Vickers was as far back as she could remember but she didn’t want to go back there. That wouldn’t put her on the map, now would it? He stared shamelessly at their house. He turned up in a souped-up Corsa. He turned up with wads of cash. He sent her tastelessly large bunches of flowers. And at the weekend he’d texted her incessantly, come out with me, come out 2nite, can I come back 2 yors, are U in, what U doin, until Sarah switched off her mobile, and left it off. Jason turned up drunk on her doorstep at three o’clock in the morning in a miserable state, saying he loved her, and they could have a future together, they could be away before Beany got out, he could put a deposit on a house somewhere miles away, elope somewhere
, East Hull maybe, his cousin’s on Longhill. But with all he’d bought, smoked, drunk, taken, Sarah doubted Jason Vickers could afford the deposit on a pool cue. He stood outside regardless, looking lost, as aimless as he was with money or without, still not wearing his cap in some vain demonstration of affection. But somehow, she felt calm with him standing there like a piece of street furnishing.
It now seemed like forever since last Thursday, and everything before seemed like a grey area, like Hull before The Deep. It wasn’t shock, or depression that had stalled her. She was excited like never before.
After Jason drifted off last Friday she flaunted her secret literature. She spread out her cuttings and pamphlets, maps, postcards and flyers, displayed The Deep in all its promotional glory. She binned MIKES TAPE. She tidied the house, and packed all but the clothes she would need for the next week or so. She didn’t think through exactly why. She read the electricity and gas meters, and pulled out all the job descriptions for The Deep. Early Saturday morning, just because she could, she went to look at it: The Deep. From up the river, near the tidal barrier, it reflected, caught clouds and shades of blue like a net full of sky. From the opposite bank of the River Hull, it looked like a shark’s head rising from the water.
Sarah saw Edna on the way back. This next rising shark was subtle. Edna took a puff on her cigarette, and gave a baleful sideways look towards her, nothing more. No ‘hello’, no ‘why aren’t you answering the phone?’, no ‘what about my Dean?’, just a look. One for Sarah, and one demonstrative glance, towards Jason, who was still propped against the end house. As she exhaled, and traipsed off without looking back, she didn’t even have to look back at Jason trotting across to her like a puppy dog. She’d seen enough to guess at enough scandal to fill her jobless, house-hopping, shit-stirring life for the next five years.
Naked City Page 8
